UNITED STATES HISTORY
SECTION II
Part A
Reading period – 15 minutes
Suggested writing time – 45 minutes
Percent of Section II score – 45
Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of
documents A - K and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by
essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period.
1. To what extent did business leaders in late nineteenth-century represent industrial statesmen or robber barons? In
your response consider their effects on American economy, government, and society from 1865 - 1900.
Document A
Source: Guy R. Spencer, The Literary Digest, May, 1905.
Document B
Source: Ben J. Wattenberg, ed. The Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present, Vol. 1 (New York:
Basic Books, 1976). P. 165
Average Daily Earning of Nonfarm Employees: 1870-1880
1870
1871
1873
1876
1879
1880
$1.47
1.45
1.40
1.21
1.12
1.16
Document C
Source: Cavanagh, American Business Values in Transition, p. 11
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) proposed a harsh “survival of the fittest” philosophy. The bright and able
contribute most to society, and so are to be encouraged and rewarded. The poor, the weak, and the
handicapped demand more than they contribute, and so should not be supported but rather allowed to die a
natural death. Contact with harsh and demanding reality is a maturing experience that should not be diluted by
well-intentioned but in reality destructive charities and handout. IF “natural” principles were followed,
evolution and the survival of the fittest in the competition of human life would be the result. Spencer did not
set out to examine any particular society and its values; rather, his critique was proposed as “culture-free.”
According to Spencer, it applied to all people for it was derived from basic, organic principles of growth and
development. Spencer applied to society the same principles that Charles Darwin saw in biological life –
hence the name, Social Darwinism.
Document D
Source: Daniel Knowlton, a New York City merchant, testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor (September
27, 1883)
“Let us inquire for a moment what are the proper functions of government, and how far, if it all, it may
interfere with the natural laws governing commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. Legitimate functions at
government I conceive to be to maintain domestic tranquility, defend the people from invasion and protect
them when traveling… to which may be added a few other functions of kindred nature, leaving the individual
enterprise untrammeled. For that purpose we maintain an Army, Navy, and civil courts. When these general
functions are exceeded the result is generally injurious in the Government. It is better always to leave
individual enterprise to do most that is to be done in the country.”
Document E
Source: Economic History of the United States, 2010.
Document F
Source: "Bosses of the Senate," Puck, January 23, 1889, by Joseph Keppler
Document G
Source: Jay Gould, railroad financer and official, testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor (September 5, 1883)
“The giving of these land grants to railroads has not been an unmixed evil… [T]he railroads have gone to
work and instituted a system of settlement on those lands. They have advertised them- and the Government
never would have done that. They have gone and bought emigrants from the Eastern States and from foreign
countries; and they have given the purchasers of their land credit, and in many cases, in hard times, they have
even furnished them a little capital… So that though the Government seems to have given away enormous
grants of land, yet if I as an individual had been the owner of that land, I would have been very glad to have
done that same thing.”
Document H
Source: “Eight Hour Day,” a song to support labor’s demands for a shorter working day, 1886 [Annals 11: 122].
We mean to make things over, we are tired of toil for naught,
With but bare enough to live upon, and ne’er an hour for thought;
We want to feel the sunshine, and we want to smell the flowers,
We are sure that God has willed it, and we mean to have eight hours.
We’re summoning our forces from the shipyard,Document
shop andI mill.
Chorus: Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will.
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will.
Document I
Source: Industrialist Andrew Carnegie in The Gospel of Wealth, 1889
This, then, is held to be the duty of man of wealth;… To set an example of modest… living,… to consider all
surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer… in the
manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community –
the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service
his superior wisdom, experience, and the ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could
do for themselves.
Document J
Source: Head of Standard Oil Company John D. Rockefeller’s testimony before the U.S. Industrial Commission, 1899. [ Annuals 12:
314- 15]
It is too late to argue about advantages of industrial combinations. They are a necessity… Their chief
advantages are:
1) Command of necessary capital;
2) Extension of limits of business;
3) Increase of number of person interested in the business;
4) Economy in the business;
5) Improvements and economies which are derived from knowledge of many interested persons of
wide experience;
6) Power to give the public improved products at less prices and still make profit for stockholders;
7) Permanent work and good wages for laborers.
Document K
Source: The Breakers, Newport Rhode Island, 1895